Public interest litigation
Xuancheng Procurator: insulting Li Xia, a "model of the times" on the Internet, and filing a public interest lawsuit!
Time: April 7, 2020 Author: News source: [Font size: large | in | Small

   On the afternoon of April 3, the Xuancheng Intermediate Court of Anhui Province conducted online mediation on two civil public interest litigation cases that insulted Li Xia, the "model of the times", which were successively brought by the Xuancheng Procuratorate through the "cloud session". The defendants Luo and Guo both expressed their remorse for insulting the heroes and martyrs in court, agreed to all the prosecution's claims, and were willing to publicly apologize in the national media.  

   On August 10, 2019, Jixi County, Xuancheng City, Anhui Province was affected by Typhoon "Lichima", which caused a flood disaster. Li Xia, then the Secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission and the Supervisor of Jingzhou Township, Jixi County, died in the process of flood fighting and rescue. Li Xia has been awarded the titles of "Excellent Communist Party Member" in Anhui Province, Xuancheng City and Jixi County, "Anhui Youth May 4th Medal" and "Advanced Worker in the Discipline Inspection and Supervision System of the Province". On September 20, 2019, the People's Government of Anhui Province assessed Li Xia as a martyr. On October 23 of the same year, the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee posthumously awarded Li Xia the title of "model of the times", and publicized Li Xia's advanced deeds to the society.  

   At about 15:00 p.m. on August 11, 2019, in order to vent his negative emotions, Guo Moumou, a netizen in Hefei, Anhui Province, publicly insulted Li Xia's reputation in the message area behind the message "A township cadre in Jixi County died in a mountain landslide during a patrol against Taiwan" released on the WeChat official account of Anhui Provincial Emergency Management Department. At about 17:00 on the same day, Guo deleted the comment himself. On August 30, the public security bureau of Jixi County detained Guo for ten days and imposed an administrative penalty of 500 yuan.  

   it happens that there is a similar case. At 20:00 on the evening of August 11, in order to vent his emotions and provoke netizens, Luo Mou, a Jiangxi Internet user, published a statement of "death is good, death is bad" in the reply area of the Baidu Post Bar Anhui Bar, where netizens released "salute to heroes and go all the way well (with the video of Li Xia's sacrifice)". About an hour later, Luo deleted the comment himself. On August 20, Luo was sentenced by Jixi County Public Security Bureau to administrative detention for 15 days and an administrative penalty of 1000 yuan only due to his provocative behavior against Li Xia's reputation.  

   Luo and Guo's comments aroused netizens' strong indignation. The Xuancheng Municipal Procuratorate found the behavior of Luo and Guo in the performance of its duties and put the case on file. After soliciting the opinions of Li Xia's close relatives, their close relatives clearly stated that they would not bring a lawsuit against the two people's behavior of infringing Li Xia's reputation, which could be handled by the procuratorial organ according to law.  

   On December 27 and 30, 2019, Xuancheng Procuratorate filed civil public interest litigation against Luo and Guo respectively. The procuratorial organ believes that Comrade Li Xia, as a Party cadre, made a heroic sacrifice in the flood fighting and rescue, which is exemplary and worthy of the title of "heroic martyr". After his sacrifice, many netizens paid homage to Comrade Li Xia on the Internet, but Luo and Guo were trying to vent their emotions, Publicly making insulting remarks directly harmed Li Xia's reputation, and also hurt the national and historical feelings of the public to a certain extent, which aroused the indignation and condemnation of netizens and caused a bad social impact. This shows that Li Xia's deeds and spirit have been internalized as part of the social public interest, and the behavior of the two defendants has violated the social public interest, Shall bear civil tort liability, The court then appealed to the court to order the two defendants to apologize on the national media for their infringement of insulting Li Xia, so as to eliminate the impact.